The Most Important Things Families Compare When Shopping For Funeral Services

When shopping around for a service and comparing prices, consumers no longer enter a store as a first step. They go online. In fact, almost three-quarters (72%) of shoppers start their buying process on the internet, and 36% of people will spend at least a half hour on that digital research. But what is it that they’re even looking for?

Families who may potentially call on your funeral home for their loved one’s service are, in overwhelming majority, visiting your website before making that phone call, emailing to set up an appointment or coming to your door. You can be sure that your firm isn’t the only one they’re clicking on, but this website visit does give you an opportunity. During this time of comparison shopping, knowing what they’re looking for (and how they’re rating the info they find) can give you an edge over your competition. This is when you begin to show families why they can and should trust you with their loved one’s funeral service.

Creating a well-rounded, easy-to-use and, most importantly, educational website is one of the smartest things you can do as a funeral professional to bring families to your door. Meet them where they start their search for a firm — on the internet — and be the first to demonstrate your value as a business. How do you do that? By knowing these top factors they’re looking for and using to compare your funeral home to the others competing for their attention.

How You Answer Questions They’re Going to Ask

When they arrive at your website, families are most likely at the earlier stages of their search for the right funeral home for their loved one’s service. This means they’re looking for the basics and seeking answers to common questions: Where are you located? Are you able to deliver the products and services I’m looking for? Why should I choose you over the funeral home down the road? Do you offer packages and add-ons that suit my needs? How much will the funeral service I have in mind cost me?

The last question can be important, since finances are finite. Even before they can get into the details, families will want a ballpark figure they can start to work with. How do you fit into their budget? You can bet almost every family who comes to you will need the answer to this question, and you can be helpful right from the start by anticipating that they will ask.

Make note of packages people often select and emphasize the value. Offer a services and products menu complete with prices to the best of your ability. You may not be able to give a full price quote online because every service is different, but offering a baseline helps families compare — among other things they’re looking at — the price point of your funeral home’s offerings. Even if your prices aren’t the lowest in the neighborhood, making information easy to find and understand is a big plus for families who are likely overwhelmed by all the research planning a funeral service takes at first.

Your Value to the Community

When all other considerations are equalized, community trust can break the tie. If a family is comparing your firm to another one nearby that offers similar packages and promises the same level of care, there’s one thing left that helps tip the scales. Your reputation and the reviews of their peers will be what sends families to your firm for this important and emotional occasion. One survey found that a whopping 85% of people trust online reviews as much as they trust recommendations from family and friends. And after reading a positive testimonial for a product or service, they’re much more likely to call or visit a business.

No one’s opinion of your firm is more valuable to a client family than a previous client’s. You can easily and gently improve your firm’s reputation by simply letting families know what kind of work you’ve been known to do in the past. Testimonials and client recommendations should take up some real estate on your website, as these reviews let families browsing your site discover what it’s really like to work with you to create a meaningful service.

Ask past families to share their impressions and get their permission to feature their testimonials on your website. As a bonus, this gives you an opportunity to receive valuable feedback from the people you serve and, if need be, rectify or learn from any mistakes you’ve made in the past. Continuous improvement of your service and offerings is a practice worth engaging.

How Well You Can Meet Their Needs

While you may serve hundreds of families per year, the best way to make sure families are satisfied and pleased with their loved one’s services is to make each one feel like it’s your top priority. Families don’t want to be a file number in your desk drawer; they want to tell you all about their loved one and collaborate with you to create a meaningful service that captures their memories and celebrates the life lived. They want personalized attention and customized options that makes their service feel tailor-made and uniquely created for their needs.

You already know that individualized attention and personalization options are important to your families. Let them know you are on the same page by demonstrating your ability to cater to these needs on your website. You could do this by creating a document listing the different options — from themes to add-ons to unique locations to just about anything else you’re able to customize.

Alternatively, with permission from families you’ve worked with previously, show your firm’s flexibility by including write-ups detailing previous services you’ve created. These should tell a story about the family you helped and the loved one they honored, as well as how your firm was uniquely able to capture what’s special about the life lived.

If You Can Create a Positive Experience During a Difficult Time

When they’re searching for a funeral home, families are enduring an emotional and difficult time. The experience will only be made more difficult if the answers and information they need are hard to come by. One way to help them through the loss of a loved one is to make the next steps as simple and pain-free as possible, and that means creating a user-friendly experience from the moment they click over to your website.

Don’t make families jump through hoops to figure out where you’re even located or how to get in touch. If you can anticipate their needs and behavior in this phase of information gathering, it will go along way toward instilling trust. In turn, this helps families understand that you’re on their side, know what they’re going through and are willing to go the extra mile for them.

Creating a user-friendly experience on the web doesn’t require you to be a coding genius or digital marketing maven. With ready-to-go, value-packed websites and templates from funeralOne, you can create a simple, educational website today, and start serving your community better. Click here to learn more.